The GOLD PRICE probably made its ultimate low for this move on December 20 with a low at $1,636.00, silver the same day with a 2964c low. But we'll see. Rest of the year should prove spectacular for silver and gold, with gold reaching $2,300 by June and silver $51 or higher.

Long term situation is this: from 2008 through April and August 2011 silver and gold rallied, from 880 cents to 4850c and from $705 to $1,880. After a rally that long, a correction follows, so do go wringing out your hankies on me. It's nature. Both the SILVER PRICE and GOLD PRICE broke through the downtrend lines from those 2011 highs in August 2012, and rallied to 3450c and $1,800, then -- no surprise, folks -- corrected. It now appears they corrected almost al the way back to those downtrend lines for a Final Kiss Good-Bye, with no intention of coming back.

But don't pay no 'tention to me! I'm just a natural born fool from Tennessee who didn't know no more in 2001 than to trade them good Wall Street stocks for that ol' silver and gold. What do you expect from a fool like that?

The silver and GOLD PRICE could make one deeper strike down, but daily that grows less likely. If so, bottoms are 2900c and $1,620 or so.

Today gold gained an astonishing $19.90 to close at $1,674.80, above the November low close but not quite to the December low at $1,684.20. Also closed above the 200 ($1,662.70) and 150 ($1,6783.71) day moving averages. Good, good, good. First tripwire of an upmove, the 20 DMA stands only about $10 above at $1,685.80.

We may have seen the bottom. Regardless, I'm buying. I'll take some chance.

The SILVER PRICE today gained 25.3 cents to 3017.3c, not as enthusiastic as gold. Gold was very perky, silver just dragged along.

That's okay. Silver often lags as rallies begin. Silver stands below its 200 DMA (3075c) and 150 DMA (3075C), but the big barrier now is first 3100c and then 3200c. Needs to punch through those to make itself respected.

Whether we have already seen the lows for this silver and gold correction or not, by mid-January they should be behind us. A very fast rise will signal no more downside coming any time soon.

It's time to buy more silver and gold. The monetary and economic problems that are driving monetary demand into silver and gold have not been cured, not lessened, and will return with a vengeance to drive them much, much higher. Don't get stuck holding stocks or dollars -- or euros or yen, for that matter.

I'm not too high on these year-end comparisons, since I am cynical enough to believe (from past evidence) that the Nice Government Men manipulate these figures to create a Potemkin economic performance. Yet some crave them, so I basely comply, slave to the public mood that I am.

For the year, the Dow appeared to do very well, up 5.7% and the S&P500 up 11.7%. Appeared, that is, to do well until you remember than valued against gold, the Dow gained only 1% and against silver only 3.5%. And you remember that silver and gold spent most of the year correcting a preceding THREE YEAR rise. Whoops -- tacky of me to mention that, wasn't it?

Big gainers among the metals, thanks to strikes in supply-rich Africa, were Platinum (up 7.2%) and palladium (up 5.3%). Both are just too quirky for me to parse.

But how about that US dollar index, Currency Fans? Stayed within 0.2% of where it began the year. Oh, yeah, that's a "natural" market. Naw, no NGM fiddling around in THAT market, no, sir!

What about next year?

Big open garbage can in the living room is the bond market, where the Fed hath so long suppressed interest rates. One day bond buyers will catch on that the Fed can only suppress rates by printing money, and the Fed's bond bubble will burst and interest rates will scream like New Year's rockets to the sky. Good chance that will happen next year.

Fed is busy buying maggoty Mortgage Backed Securities from the banks trying to clean up their balance sheets, but there are more corpses in those closets than in Fibber McGee's. Same holds for European banks, only worse. And don't even talk about Japanese banks. So we're beginning the year carrying the same slimy load of bad banks we carried into last year.

Fiscal cliff? Well, Quarterback O'Bama slammed down the football, but unfortunately he was still a few yards shy of the goal line. 'Twill turn out no more than a mouse-burp. Federal government will keep spending and borrowing, and Fed will keep monetizing the debt. They can do no other, they are made to do that. They inflate, or die. Course, in the end they will inflate AND die, but as long as that comes "tomorrow," who cares?

US dollar index has range-traded since 2008 between 71.33 and 89.11, more narrowly (last half 2010 - 2012) 84 - 72.7. Long term the trend is down, but clearly the Fed is trying to maintain a range with the yen and euro of about US$1=Y85=E0.85 to US$1=Y74=E0.74 (or think of it as Y74 on the low side and Y135 on the high side, or E118 low and E135 high). As long as they depreciate in unison, no destructive competitive devaluation takes place. And make no mistakes, central banks work together as closely as pickpockets at a Yankees ball game, and for the same reason.

US$=Y86.75=E0.7578=0.033 142 oz Ag=0.000 597 oz Au.

Euro may rise as high as $1.3500 early in the year, before the corpses come floating to the top of the pond again. Closed today $1.3196, down 0.17%.

Japanese politicians have run their "depreciate the yen" game about as far as the Fed and ECB can tolerate. Yen hit a new low for the move today at 115.28c/Y100 (US$1=Y86.75). That can't last much longer, but it helps Japanese imports while it does. Of course, if Abe gets his way, the inflation will wreck the Japanese economy, already the most over-indebted of the three big ones.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

The silver and GOLD PRICE remain lethargic. Silver lost 26.4 cents today and closed Comex at 2992c. Gold mislaid $7.80 to end at $1,654.90.

The GOLD PRICE range was tight, $1,662.60 to $1,651.10, but so 'twas the whole week. Stood rangebound by $1,667 and 1,650. Longer term chart makes me expect one final push down, but you'll know I am wrong if gold closes above $1,684.10, the last low. One last push down might carry to $1,620 or even $1,610.

The SILVER PRICE traded tightly today, too, from 3027.9c to 2987c. Week was bounded by 3040c and 2970c. Marking time, that's all.

Down below one last exhaustion selling spike down could carry silver to 2900c. It needs to close above 3100c to reverse.

Keep your eyes on the horizon. Silver and gold remain I a bull market (primary long term trend). If they have not already bottomed, they should in January's first two weeks. This is a time to BUY silver and gold, not panicking into selling them, and not a time to fret. Relax.

Everything went down this week? Everything? Yes, everything. Stocks were the biggest losers, down 1.9%. Well, okay, Palladium didn't fall. And the dollar was flat as a fritter. Otherwise the bleeding was general.

A look at the US Dollar's chart this week won't send you away enlightened. It merely traded in a range between 79.8 and 79.35, with a leetle spike today to 79.90. Flat. However, the longer term trend remains down, so you can expect small things from the dollar.

Euro remains above its downtrend line, but paralyzed and unable to advance. Not an encouraging sign, but the euro remains in an established uptrend, and a trend in force remains in force until violated. Closed $1.3218, down 0.18%

The Yen, on the other hand, is plumbing the depths of a politically engineered drop over Niagara Falls. Rose today 0.21% to 116.39 cents per 100 yen. The yen at this depth must be making the Nice Government Men all over the world nervous, because it screams "Competitive devaluation!" something no central banker in his right mind wants to see start. After all, where is the honor among thieves?

Stocks plunged deeply into trouble today. Somebody took a meat-ax to the Dow and chopped off 158.2 (1.21%), leaving it bleeding at 12,938.11, WAY below that 13,300 resistance above. Whoops. Did I mention that is also WAY below its 200 DMA at 13,015? Or its 50 DMA at 13,069? Or its 20 DMA at 13,140? No, I don't think I did.

Fix this in your mind: it is possible -- barely -- that a market in a primary down trend like stocks might, in the course of a rally, re-visit its 200 DMA and live to rally longer, it's just not too likely. That 200 DMA, remember, is the watershed of a primary downtrend, which spends most of its life BELOW that 200 DMA. Dow has now cast a continuing rally into the drawer with all "less likely outcomes."

S&P did a little better. Misplaced 5.13 (0.61%) to close at 1,402.43. S&P500 has not fallen below its 200 DMA (1390) but is below its 20 and 50 DMA.

More to the point are the charts of the Dow in Gold and S&P500 in gold. Both formed island reversal tops, both have fallen sharply down from that. Other indicators scream, "Expect lower prices!" Whatever they do in nominal dollar terms, from here stocks will lose lots of value against gold and silver.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

That brings Gold plumb up to the 200 DMA ($1,662.61) and riding along the uptrend line from the June 2012 low. Not clear to me whether gold will make one more plunge down toward $1,620 or even terrifyingly lower, or it has finished its bottom-scraping.

If the GOLD PRICE did go lower, it would only make it MORE attractive than it is now. Of course, it doesn't FEEL that way. It feels like your stomach is going to climb out of your mouth and go its own way, but that's precisely the time you have to grab hold and remember that the Primary Trend is up, that this correction will end shortly, and that 2013 will smile brightly on gold.

The SILVER PRICE chart is plainer to me than gold's, and makes me expect one more push down toward 2900 cents. Here's how you will know. Low last week was 2964c, so if it trades down there, lower prices will come. On the other hand, it silver can climb above 3100, say 3132 (the 300 DMA), then the bottom is probably in.

Neither metal feels very frisky, but part of that may be the absence of traders for the holiday. By frisky, I mean a day when metals rise 2 or 3% or more, slapping all the shorts silly.

Be patient. I have been buying along here, even knowing we might see another little spike down. Other alternative is to wait and buy as it climbs, but sometimes it gets away from you.

But I'm just a natural born fool from Tennessee, and can hardly spell "cintrul bank."

Here's how kind I am to y'all: not even ONE time in this commentary will I refer to the fiscal cliff, although I will volunteer to push over it the next person I hear say it. It's all a silly mouse-burp deal that doesn't amount to a hillock of beans. Out of it will come for y'all nothing good, only higher taxes and more spending. Don't believe me? Hide and watch.

In the world of disgusting, scrofulous, scabby, cheating, no-good, low-life white trash fiat currencies the Japanese yen has run away with the race to the bottom. Let us pass over as a matter too painful for fastidious minds the bubbling folly of the next Japanese prime minister wanting the Bank of Japan to inflate by at least 2% a year. I will not bore you by repeating yet again that all the inflation in the world only hurts and can never help any economy. I only observe that the yen today hit yet another new low for the move, ending down another 0.58% at 116.16 cents/Y100. This has crossed over the Y85=US$1 line in the sand I speculate the Central banks want to protect. Probably every goof in the world has hopped on and shorted the yen, offering central bank and Nice Government Men the opportunity to prove to them that what they thought was investing genius is really only crowd-following folly. A major picking of pockets will occur. Meantime, this can't go on much longer. Yen is more oversold than membership in the US senate.

US dollar index rose a microscopic 2.8 basis points (0.04%) to 79.633. Has almost reached its 20 day moving average (79.84), and appears to have been carefully steered away from wrecking support at 79. Still headed down.

The euro rose 0.8% today to $1.3237, having bounced off $1.3300. I 'spect it has another point in it, to $1.3400, maybe higher, but I wouldn't buy euros with your money. All the European foundation, the banks, all the rest, remains rotten.

US$1=Y86.09=E0.7555=0.033 130 oz. Ag=0.006 014 oz Au.

Stocks are forcing me to question whether they will yet rally past 13,300 on the Dow (1,450 on the S&P500). Both indices are greener than a ten-year-old smoking cheap cigars. Dow has pierced its 20 DMA (13,144.44), 50 DMA (13,078.50), and 200 DMA (13,015.87), although it climbed from its 12,964 low today to close down only 18.28 (0.14%) at 13,096.31. S&P500 closed down 1.73 (0.12%) at 1,418.10.

Main spur to my doubt is the Dow in Gold and the S&P500 in Gold. Both traced out a dramatic island reversal, both have fallen away. More, the island reversal came as they broke out upside, showing exhaustion Only way I could be persuaded that stocks had not turned down against gold would be for that island reversal's top to be exceeded, chances of which are more vanishingly small than my chance of becoming the lead dancer in the Bolshoi Ballet.

On this black day for freedom, justice, and truth in 1945, 28 nations signed an agreement to create the World bank and the International Monetary Fund. Banks raised the level of looting from the national to the international.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

Both the silver and GOLD PRICE formed descending right triangles with highs in April 2011 and September 2011. In August, they both broke through the falling hypotenuse of that triangle, the break-out marking the escape from that correction. It is common, yea, frequent for markets to break out (up or downside), then return to the resistance or support they broke through earlier for that Final Kiss Good-bye and last reversal.

I reckon that's what you're seeing right now in both the silver and GOLD PRICE, because both have nearly touched that downtrend line. If they fall through that support, then the carnage and bloodshed becometh general, sending silver back toward 2600c and gold toward $1,525.

I don't believe that will happen. I believe we are within pennies of a bottom, maybe $1,636 for gold and 2900c for silver.

Today the SILVER PRICE gained 53 cents to 3014.2 while gold gained a meaty $14.20 to $1,659.10. I wouldn't chortle too much about these gains, because short-covering at week's end easily explains them. Besides, gold didn't clear $1,675 nor silver 3150c, which they must do to reverse upward.

Few people make commitments in the days right before Christmas. Come the day after Boxing Day (26 December) we'll see their intentions.

Back away a minute. Even if silver and gold return to those support lines that were 12 and 18 months a-building, it matters not. They remain in a primary uptrend, a bull market. Calm yourself with that reminder, and don't fret corrections and short term moves. I've been on the winning and the losing sides of these moves -- you just have to keep your head and remember you have a LONG-TERM strategy and are not a day-trader.

I'm not sure anyone got away from this week without bleeding: stocks gained slightly, but looking closer failed to breach resistance. Metals were beaten with barbed wire whips and left for the buzzards. Oddly, yea, oddly, the US dollar index closed the week within two-thousandths (2/1000s) of last week's close. Good shooting, that!

Here before Christmas I'm going to try to sum up events of the past month. By the way, I will be celebrating the Incarnation of Jesus Christ the Son of God on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and St. Stephen's Day, so I won't return with a commentary until 27 December. I pray each of you has a Merry Christmas.

Since mid-November the US dollar index has dropped from 81.46 to 79.569 today, a 2.3% loss. This has carried the buck down to support at 79. From here it will likely rally up to the downtrend line, today about 80, but dropping fast. If the dollar index closes below 79, it will attract sellers like a pretty girl attracts male eyeballs at the beach.

Because the Management (the Fed and any Administration) has demonstrated since 1914 they will depreciate the dollar, it's almost silly to talk about the dollar's short term fate. Long term it will go the way of all paper. Meanwhile, the central banks want to keep out of a devaluation competition, so they manage their currencies in ranges. That for the dollar index is probably about 84 to 72. But remember no central bank is managing its exchange rate to preserve purchasing power, but only to keep it from depreciating or appreciating too rapidly against the other two of the Big Three Turkeys, yen, euro, and dollar. Against anything with value -- a package of gum, a share of stock, an ounce of silver or gold -- all those currencies will continue to depreciate, because governments must borrow or die, and central banks must inflate or die. Long term, not the tiniest fact appeareth on the horizon to gainsay this easy descent into hell.

Euro looked a bit carsick today. Lost 0.45% to $1.3189. If $1.3400 doesn't stop it, could rise clean to $1.3500. In the undercarriage, however, the euro is even more salt-and-rust rotten than the US dollar, and only terror that it might fall apart keeps it together. Despite what the well-trained and well-paid actors assure you, the European bank, currency, and economic problems are not cured, anymore than the Black Death promised to stop at Naples and not move up into Europe.

Euro since mid-November low at $1.2672 has gained 0.517 to 1.3189 today, up 4.1%.

In the same period the yen has dropped from 126.43 cents/Y100 to 118.73 today, down 6.1%. Since September it's lost 8.4%. Clearly, a deal was made amongst the central banks to cheapen the yen, the sickest of a plague-rotted lot. Bottom should be found here somewhere around 118 cents.

US$1=YU84.22=E0.7582=0.033 176 oz Ag=0.000 603 oz Au.

US$1=0.969 gram silver = 0.187 gram gold.

Stocks gained a little this week, but every time the Dow approaches that 13,300 resistance, a big hand reaches out and slaps it winded. Today the Dow lost a breath-catching 120.88 (0.91%) to 13,190.84 and the S&P500 tumbled 13.54 (0.94%) to 1,430.15.

Unless the Dow falls significantly below its 50 day moving average (now 13,091.51) 'twill yet score higher prices in this move. With the new year, sobriety will return. Settling the fiscal cliff will prove a greater disappointment than encouragement. Better sell that news.

The Dow priced in gold. Ahh, here you will note the last four days have drawn the Death Card with a clear Island Reversal. The Dow in gold gapped up through the downtrend line, made a new high for the move, then fell back. At the very least that gap will be filled, but it looks more like an Island Reversal that appears when a move exhausts itself, surges one last time, then falls away. The "falling away" is due very, very shortly.

Mathematically that can mean stocks rise while gold rises faster, or stocks fall while gold remains steady or rises. Either way, gold will begin to outpace stocks. (I don't make this stuff up. I just look at the chart. This plainly implies stocks' move up is ending, or gold's move down.) Same picture, with gaps leading to the island, appears in the Dow in Silver. More overvalued than a brand new automobile waiting on the lot for a sucker to buy.

Stocks since mid November have risen from 12,471.49 to 13,190.84 today, up 5.8%.

Over that same space the GOLD PRICE has dropped from $1,755 to $1,659, down $96 or 5.5%. Silver has lost 14.1%, dropping from 34.49 to 29.64, lower by $4.85.

Think about the Final Kiss Good-bye, the one that says, "I'm leaving, and I ain't coming back."

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

The GOLD PRICE lost $21.60 to close Comex at $1,644.90. Silver lost a bruising 4.6% today, 143.3 cents, to smash support at 3100 AND 3000c by closing at 2961.2c.

For both the gold and SILVER PRICE today's move complete a 61.8% correction of the rise that began last June. Both have oversold RSIs, both have MACDs that are scraping their last bottom, both are below the long term moving averages I watch (150 and 200 for gold, 300 and 200 for silver).

In short, they are oversold and ready to get oversold-er. Perverse, but when morale is broken in a market, it has to have its back completely broken before it reverses.

GOLD/SILVER RATIO also points to more deterioration in silver. Today it gapped up to 55.548. and appears headed to close an old gap between 57 and 57.5. Silver and gold are in the waterfall phase, so this spasm could end in a few days. Will certainly pause for Christmas in any event.

Since both metals cut through their uptrend line form the June 2012 low, underneath them now is only the Downtrend line from the 2011 highs, 2900 - 2850c for silver, $1635 - 1620 for gold.

Sounds like I've got it all scoped out, but if I did I wouldn't have gotten it so wrong till now. More than that, markets never do exactly what you expect them to. They move to support, and instead of stopping, pierce through before they reverse, or never quite reach support. It's as if they know what you are thinking, and dodge on purpose. Thus the proverb that "bull markets always to shake off as many riders as they can." Question is, can YOU hold on? Can you stand the heat?

Thus every day markets give you a highly concentrated dose of humility.

What we surely know is that silver and gold remain in a primary uptrend, and that every day brings us closer to the end of this correction. Just stand back and watch it a few days. There's time, it's not running away, and if it starts to climb, well, give it more time still. We need more certainty here like a dying man needs a drink of water.

Be patient. Still, I have to buy at least a little silver here somewhere. Whenever that gap in the gold silver ratio is filled, that'd be about the day.

Aww, shucks! Tomorrow's the end of the world, according to some interpreters of the Mayan Calendar. Say, I have an idea for all y'all who're convinced the world will end tomorrow: y'all send me your money. Probably better wire it, as there's not much time left. While you're at it, mail me your credit cards, too, and any jewelry you're not planning to take with you.

Dollar index fell 8.9 basis points to 79.245, nothing new there. Euro took advantage of that, hit $1.3300 as yesterday, but too spindly-armed to hold on there. Closed $1.3244, up 0.26%. Yen fell another tiny bit, to 118.49c/Y100. Got to be near the end of that fall.

Stocks suffered a bad beating this morning, but found "sponsorship" in the latter part of the day, and managed to close above 13,300 at 13,311.72, up 59.75. S&P500 rose 0.55% (7.88) to 1,443.69. Weak and wormy, but will climb more, I believe.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

The Gold Price Closed Down Slightly Remember to be Patient it's a Primary Uptrend

Yesterday the GOLD PRICE went down & pierced its 200 day moving average ($1,663.33) with a $1,662.70 low, but todays $1,666.90 low didn't touch it. Gold has its feet tangled in its 150 DMA (1,669.56) & 200 DMA. Todays high poked up to $1,676.41.

All this speaks three ways: it might have reached its lower limit, it might sink to $1,645 where the June 2012 low uptrend line will catch it, or it might sink to $1,620 - $1,600 where the downtrend from the September 2011 high will catch it.

The GOLD PRICE had a lot of positive sentiment to work off. That's what corrections are all about, the market pendulum swinging from way-too-optimistic to way-too-pessimistic, before it swings back to way-too-optimistic. What we want for gold is REALLY negative sentiment, lots more of those internet articles that are now starting to appear calling for gold at $1,400 or lower. Of course, these all come from the folks who were also wrong when gold stood at $1,800.

The SILVER PRICE went through the 300 DMA (3135) and almost to the 200 DMA (3086c). That 200 also stands even with the uptrend from June, so it ought to hold. Today's low nearly touched it at 3090c. Only other logical target is the downtrend line from the April 2011 high, now about 2900c.

Be patient, lift your head above the crowd & watch the horizon. It's a primary uptrend.

There's a proverb that says, "Because the sentence against evil is not executed speedily, men's hearts are fully set to do evil." We're all such goofs that we see only what's going on around us, and figure it'll pretty much stay the same forever. After all, the old rules, the ancient law, doesn't count anymore in this new age. We're in a new era, and that changes everything.

That reasoning is what I call "a mite previous." Just as people do more & more wicked things when they see evil men go unpunished (no time to list even 1/100 of those recent names!), assuming they can get away with evil, too, so they think that all the injustices, inequities, and frauds built into the American economic & financial system will never come home to roost. Washington & the rest of us will just muddle through in the end, somehow, & prosperity will return. The electrons will save us. The ancient law has died.

Ponder only the US monetary & banking system, which builds in the twin frauds of inflation & fractional reserve. Every dollar they create steals a dollar from someone, & hurts the least & poorest most of all. Do Americans really believe that any society built on a foundation of theft can last?

I have bad news for y'all: the ancient law has never died. It may delay but it will appear. Rudyard Kipling said it quite clearly in his poem, "Gods of the Copybook Headings":

"And that after this is accomplished, & the brave new world begins

"When all men are paid for existing & no man must pay for his sins,

"As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

"The gods of the Copybook Headings with terror & slaughter return."

If you ask me why I invest in silver & gold, I could quickly cite you twenty or so sound logical reasons, but underlying them all is this warm certainty & fear: the ancient law has never died.

But what do I know? I'm just a natural born fool from Tennessee, & tom-foolish enough to be glad of it.

One of those worrisome harbingers is the yield on Ten year US treasuries. The criminals at the Federal Reserve haver created a bubble in bonds with their zero interest rate policy, & someday the pin will stick. Last few days the yield has risen to near the top of the range. It's not near, yet, most likely, but when it hits a panic out of bonds & the dollar will spawn problems so thorny they'll leave Ben Bernanke looking like he's been cuddling a porcupine.

After falling overnight to a V-bottom at 79.008, the dollar index turned around and climbed to a close 15.4 basis points (0.2%) above yesterday's. This is nothing to brag about, unless you are drunk. Dollar's trend is firmly down with plenty of room to go downer.

Euro rose today to $1,132.26, but 99% of that gain came yesterday. Yen has fallen again, down 0.24% today to 118.5 cents/Y100. Both the Yen & the Euro are reaching for what I suspect are the limits of the range the Nice Government Men, with their chain pulled globally by the Fed Reserve's NGM, will tolerate, namely, Y85 or E0.85 below and Y135 or E$1.35 above. Japanese must be in real trouble to let them drive their currency so low.

US$1=Y84.46=E0.7555=0.032 211 oz Ag=0.000 600 oz. Au.

Stocks crumpled again at 13,300 and fell today almost as much as they rose yesterday, down 98.96 (0.74%) after rising 115.57 yesterday. Dow scored 13,251.97 at closing, while the S&P had lost 0.76% (10.98) at 1,435.81.

While that might mark the end of stocks' rally, a trend in force deserves the presumption it will remain in force until it confirms it's not. Today's fall wasn't near enough to do that. Expect higher stock prices, although we are reaching that time around the holidays when markets go dead, & that might dampen things until Boxing Day.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

Even thought the dollar fell a hefty 19.6 basis points (0.25%) today to 79.343, stocks rose and the silver and GOLD PRICE fell. I said yesterday that silver and gold looked tired, and they were. Rejoice, turn somersaults! This is what we've been waiting for.

The SILVER PRICE fell today 61.1 cents to 3159.5c. At its low it hit 3136, NOT coincidentally the 300 day moving average, one of my targets.

Think: silver might drop to the 200 DMA still, at 3088c, or it might stop at the uptrend from the June low, now about 3080c. Finally, it might even fall all the way to the downtrend line from the 4/2011 high, now about 2900c. If the worst happened and silver fell from here to 2900c, that's only an 8.3% downside risk. And today might have been the end of it. Personally, I bought a good bit of silver today.

The GOLD PRICE fell $27.50 to $1,669.50, right above the 150 DMA at 1,668.05. Low came below that at $1,662.70.

The 150 and 200 DMA ($1,663.43) are right beside each other, so that low hit 'em both today. That could be the end of gold's fall.

What if it ain't? Then it could fall to the uptrend line form the June 2012 low, now about $1,648, or even the downtrend line from the September 2011 high, now about $1,620.

I doubt it. I doubt either silver or gold will fall much further. I bought gold today, too, and would have bought more if I had been able to find small gold coins, which have lately all but disappeared.

But I would have bought today even if I had been fairly certain both metals would fall further. Why? Just because I like to empty my pockets? No, because I've learned that I do not know everything and cannot see the future perfectly, so I have to force myself to buy a logical, pre-determined price targets. I don't always win, doing that, but I at least I don’t have to stare at a chart and ask myself, "Why in the world didn't I buy when it was so low?"

Anybody who wants to wait for the perfect price, feel free to do so. I don't do that any more.

I've got to scoot out of here early and take a much-needed break with my wife. Driving up to Cookeville and nearby Hidden Springs Nursery, a magical place hidden in a great rift in the earth like something out of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. And they raise great nursery stock, especially a hybrid Honey Locust that has no thorns but produces plenty of those sweet pods that horses, goats, cattle, pigs, sheep, and everything else loves to eat. Back tomorrow, God willing.

Stocks finally made it to, and probably through, 13,300. Dow added 115.57 (0.87%) today to close at 13,350.96. S&P4500 rose 16.43 (1.15%) to 1,446.79. Exuberant enthusiasm. Let 'em spasm all by themselves. This stock rally is most likely the last one before the big plunge.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

The silver and GOLD PRICE feel really tired. Gold gained $1.20 today to end Comex comatose at $1,697. Silver lost 1.7 cents to close 3220.6c.

Once again, the GOLD PRICE validated that support running slightly upward from $1,672.50 (November's low) to $1,684.10 (December's low). Hit that line about $1,684.40 and bounced back toward $1,700. Today's high at $1,699.09 does not rank as a grounds for pride.

The SILVER PRICE left little doubt about its intentions today with a lower low for the move at 3206c, third day of lower lows since it broke that support line about 3250c.

But it isn't exactly collapsing on a skinny daily range of 30.5c (yes, the high came at 3236.5). Silver has just gone dead in the water. If 3200c is broken, silver will make a quick spike down.

Watching. That's all I know to do when markets act like this. Just be patient until they tip their hand. Won't be long.

Maybe rumors of a deal on the FC (I can no longer bring myself to use the cliché) ramped up Wall Street today, or maybe they're taking their Christmas toot early, but stocks rose mightily. Dow gained 0.76% (100.38) to 13,235.39 and the S&P500 gained a massy 1.19% (16.78) to 1,430.36.

However the Dow still could not climb over 13,300 resistance. I 'spect it will, though, as a mouth-foaming, frenzy takes over here at year end and takes over the foresight-challenged minds. Y'all have to keep on resisting the bait, because buried in it lurks a hook.

US dollar index fell mildly, down 6.7 basis points (0.09%), but that doesn't speak as loudly as the new low for the move at 79.50, taking out the old low at 79.57. No, no, it didn't follow through to fall further, but the act has been done, however long consummation delays.

Euro barely moved today, down 0.02% to $1.3164. Remains above the downtrend line, but whenever it edged toward $1.3200, it wilted like a bashful boy at a barn dance. Probably has somewhat higher prices in it, but what loony would buy it for that, only to watch it collapse a few weeks later?

Just to prove that no market ever drops so low that it can't drop further, the Japanese yen make a new low for the move today, lost 0.48%, and ended at 119.24 cents/Y100. Got to be making the Fed's NGM nervous. It's more oversold than hot dogs at Coney Island.

Y'all still barely have time to order At Home in Dogwood Mudhole and get it by Christmas, but you'll have to use either priority or express mail. Coincidentally enough, both are available at our website, www.dogwoodmudhole.com

Here's the latest reader response, from someone who had ordered Christmas copies: "I've received my first copy of AHIDM and it is already stained with tears of laughter, been, wine, and various un-identifiable solid products that appear to be in the ham sandwich family. When one guffaws, one tends to spew one's sandwich, if you hadn't noticed. Where are my other four copies? Santa is depending on you!"

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

The silver and GOLD PRICE took a hard whupping with a big club this week. Well, it hurt a lot but didn't do any permanent damage. Today silver lost 5.7 cents while the GOLD PRICE gained twenty cents to $1,695.80.

One of two scripts is playing out. (1) Gold has support at a line touching the recent bottoms at $1,672.50 and $1,684.10, today about $1,688, OR, (2) gold will breach that line and stop at the 150 and 200 DMAs (now $1,667 and $1,663.5) or even fall to the uptrend line from the June low, about bout $1,650.

Nope, I don't know which, but don't reckon this indecision or weakness will last more than December.

This week the SILVER PRICE fell out of a little even-sided triangle with a target of about 3150 (300 DMA, 3136c (200 DMA), or the rising trend line from the June 2012 low about 3090c. Like gold, we'll probably have to endure this torment till year end, unless silver could climb back above 3350c in one great bound.

At the risk of repeating myself repeatedly, silver and gold remain in a PRIMARY UPTREND (BULL MARKET) which will run several more years and carry prices to heights it now seems ridiculous, risible, and feverish to utter. Yet happen it will. Keep calm, keep buying when they drop. Much higher prices coming next year, gold over $2,300 and silver over $50 by end-May, most likely.

I want to explain Lurch-o-nomics to y'all. Lurch-o-nomics is what your government and your central bank practice. Luther said that mankind is like a drunk: he falls off the horse on one side, climbs back up, and then trying to keep from falling off on that same side, he falls off on the other. Sort of like Ben Bernanke (and every central banker's) recipe for economic intervention, he lurches from one stupidity-spawned catastrophe to the next by trying to clean up the last.

Consider mighty Alan Greenspan -- not many have the gall to call him mighty today, after a couple of years' perspective -- lurching from side to side. He lurched to prevent a depression in the early 1990s, and spewed out so much liquidity he created a tech-stock bubble and fueled a stock market blow-off. Sensing that he might have made a tee-tiny mistake, he then lurched into a bond-bubble, and when that blew up he lurched into a real estate bubble, which burst in 2006 and ain't over till now and may abide unhurt the rest of my born days.

Lurch-o-nomics: it's what central banks do!

Now in lurching from side to side, like a drunken fireman spraying his flopping nozzle off a speeding truck, Ben has managed to create a truly gigantical bubble in the bond market. He has accomplished this either out of disingenuous stupidity, ignorance, or manic Keynesian brainwashing. The whole WORLD has bought US treasury bonds, because Ben has launched tsunami after tsunami of new money across the Seas of Finance, while keeping interest rates near zero.

Here's what will happen, and put down that crystal ball, Louise, you don't need THAT to make this forecast! One day the realizers will realize. One day one of them will awaken, and say to himself, "Wow. Those interest rates have been zero for a coon's age. Why, there's no direction for them to go but up from here, which means my bonds will go down. And Bernanke is spinning dollars like a cotton candy machine, which means the dollars the bonds promise to pay are going to sink like your wedding ring in a running garbage disposal. I'm selling those bonds." Trouble is, realizers travel in herds, like lemmings, and one of 'em selling will spook others, and pretty soon the bond bubble will have burst.

Lurch-o-nomics: it's what they do. Watch out for the inevitable snap-back when interest rates rise. 'Twill rank right up there with the real estate bubble.

Oh, and about that myth the Fed propagates that it "controls" interest rates? Fed controls nothing but the measly Fed Funds rate, and if the market stampedes over it the Fed will no more be able to command interest rates than King Canute could command the tide.

And y'all know, it MIGHT be necessary for the Nice Government Men to strike gold with a little manipulation if it rises too fast, cause fast-rising gold makes realizers REALLY twitchy. Fact is, they might have done that this week.

US DOLLAR INDEX has seen better weeks. I couldn't understand why, after the Fed's announcement they were going to increase the US money supply by $1.02 trillion (about 11%) next year the dollar didn't sink like a fat frog in a deep well, but it floated instead. Today then it broke 79.70 support and fell 36.2 basis points (0.47%) to 79.5467 now. Standeth right on the last low, and if it falls through that floor, will fall toward 78.90. Much further to fall. Better shuck them dollars while ye may!

Euro at last made it past resistance of that downtrend line, gaining 0.64% to $1.3161. Will hit $1.3200, no doubt, and might head for $1.3400. Thus the euro draws near the end of this rally. European economy remains rotten, European banks are rotten, European politics and politicians and central bankers are rotten. What's left to help them? Well, they make great wine and cheese in Italy.

Japanese Yen has fallen just about as low as the Fed and other central bankers will tolerate. Rose today 0.23% to 119.81.

Y'all go look at a 15 year S&P500 chart. You'll see the most bodacious Head and Shoulders top you ever saw in your life, and it's just about now completing that right shoulder. Mercy! That's gonna wreck the party like three carloads of liverish cops when that comes down!

Today the Dow chiseled off 35.71 (0.27% to close at 13,135.01. S&P500 appeared just as raggedy, lost 5.87 (0.14%) to 1,413.58.

It's likely only correcting to continue its rally. Hitting on the 50 DMA today, often the target of corrections. Real challenge for the Dow is to beat through the fence at 13,300. Ought to rally for the rest of the year, maybe into January, maybe up to 13,750. It will be the last Kiss of Death.

Get out of mutual funds and stocks while there are still buyers.

On 16 December 1967, today just shy of 45 years ago, I married Susan Askew in Memphis. It stuck, and am I glad. Don't know why she has stuck with me, but I am most heartily glad, seven children and 45 years later. By the way, her wedding dress still fits her, and I believe she is immune to gravity. Still pretty enough to stop heavy traffic in a rainstorm.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

The GOLD PRICE broke $1,705 late yesterday supposedly on Bernanke's statements about the fiscal cliff. (He's against it.) By 9:30 a.m. it had fallen to $1,689.50. It rebounded to $1,701.90, then fell below $1,700 again and spent the rest of the day hanging out at $1,695.60.

Yesterday the GOLD PRICE touched the downtrend line from the late November high, then reversed vigorously today, gravity-ward. Support stands at the last two lows, today about $1,687.50, about where today's $1,689.50 low struck.

What's possible? Gold might hold that line. You'll know that tomorrow. If it doesn't, then the 150 and 200 DMAs stand beneath to catch it at $1,666 or $1,663.56. Beyond that the uptrend line form the June 2012 low stands about $1,650 today.

A couple of other things I want to mention is the Dow in gold, that's one weird rascal, hugging that uptrend line so tightly since mid-November, and hitting the 200 DMA from below today, and a long term (since mid-2007) downtrend line. Either stocks are getting to rally hard against gold by breaking through that point, or they are about to fall back hard. Since the long term trend is down, odds favor fall back hard.

Both platinum and palladium have been trending upward since end-October. Platinum took a $33 hit today, but it didn't harm the chart. Palladium 4 days ago hit 706, its September high, and fell back but remains in an uptrend. Today might have marked a breakdown.

If you're one of those folks who frets over the uncertainty that governments and central banks inevitably inject into your life, I suggest you move where there isn't either one. Whoops -- sorry. They've crowded all the intelligent life off the planet. You'll have to move to Mars to escape them.

Today, a distinctly attractive possibility.

It appears that the SILVER PRICE and GOLD PRICE are on their way to lower lows before this correction ends. Be patient, be patient. The bull market will raise silver and gold to higher aand higher prices. Keep your eyes on the horizon and off the goofs in Washington. Pay 'em no mind. Eventually they'll get tired and go away.

Something happened today, but who knows why. After Bernanke announced the Fed would add $1.02 trillion to the dollar supply last year, instead of tanking today the dollar actually gained 2.6 basis points. And the inflation-happy stock market turned sad instead. And just in case you are one of those Pollyannas who believe that central banks and governments have got it all figured out and we're "coming out of the woods," Gretel, the top 5 central banks (less Japan, but they're coming shortly) announced today simultaneously that the Fed would extend to 1 February 2014 its swap line to the other central banks, a swap line the Fed used to loan $585 billion (half a trillion, give a billion or so) to foreign central banks so they could keep their own banks afloat on the Global Sea of Liquidity. Think of it as Homeland Security buying up 30 million rounds of ammo. What do they know we don't know?

US Dollar index yesterday made a low about 79.70, so it needs to hold on there to keep from falling further. Up above 80 offers a solid barrier.

Euro barely rose today, up 0.05% to $1.3078. Can't muster the strength to push through that downtrend line, although it stands above all its moving averages. However, it's in an uptrend, so odds favor a breakout.

The Yen fell off a cliff again today, down 0.49% to 119.61 cents/Y100. Yen must be nearing the point at which the rest of the world's Nice Government Men swing into action. Can't imagine them letting the yen drop below 117.64 cents (=Y85 to the dollar).

Things just got gloomier and gloomier for stocks as the day wore on. Markets just adore uncertainty, and O'Bama and his dance partner Boehner are keeping the world as uncertain as they possibly can. Dow lost 0.56% (74.73) to 13,170.72 while the S&P500 gave back 9.03 (0.63%) to 1,419.45.

This amounts to the Dow being turned back at 13,300 resistance (yesterday's high was 13,329.44). Probably plenty more upside here, but for now the market just can't deal with the schizophrenia pouring out of Washington.

Gold today fell a meaty $21 (1.22%) through $1,705 to close Comex at $1,695.60. Silver lost a heart-stopping 4.23% (142.7 cents) and ended at 3228, smashing 3350c and 3300c support, and even cutting through support that had cradled it since early November.

Fake-out break-outs occur when a market breaks out of a pattern one way, then immediately wheels on its heel and reverses. That's what silver did yesterday, breaking out of a little even- sided triangle toward the upside, then falling down through it to break out on the downside today. Along the way it made a new low for the move at 3228c.

If markets behaved perfectly predictably, it wouldn't be fun.

Only target left is the 200 and 300 day moving averages, nested now at 3090c and 3135c. Beneath that lies the uptrend line from the June 2012 low around 2900c. Silver may fall much further, or it may simply torture us by zigging and zagging back and forth until year end.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

The silver and GOLD PRICE have slapped me so many times, but I'm going to try again today. I don't reckon I'll ever learn.

The GOLD PRICE gained $8.40 (0.5%) to $1,716.60 while silver added 76.6 cents (2.33%) to close Comex at 3370.7c. Once again, it begins to look like both metals have bottomed.

Today gold scored a higher high ($1,722.50 v. $1,714.30 yesterday) and a higher low ($1,708.55 v. $1,705.45 yesterday). This leaves behind a double bottom at $1,672.50 in early November and $1,684.10 last week. Stayed well above that $1,705 support.

What's missing? Confirmation by closing over $1,725. However, that's liable to come in a one day jump.

GOLD could only gainsay my interpretation that the bottom is in by closing below $1,705. Otherwise, it will move higher from here.

That SILVER PRICE was jumpy today, and all toward the ceiling. Low came at 3292c in European trading (about midnight NY time). By 9:00 a.m. silver had reached 3325c and was tugging at the leash. Somebody hit it, it fell back instantly to 3300c, then took off for the clouds, gapping and leaping to 3373.2. Rest of the day it backed off, but stayed mostly above 3340c.

'Twas a good day. Great day, matter of fact.

On the 4 month chart silver broke out upside from an even- sided triangle, and stands above its 50 (3298c) and 20 (3335c) day moving averages. Momentum indicators have turned or are turning up. 3400c may snag its feet for a minute, but silver should be headed for 3550c -- SOON.

The comrades on the Federal Open Market Committee announced a boon for the printer's union: more "accommodation." This comes in two forms, (1) the Fed buying Mortgage Backed Securities to the tune of $40 billion a month, and, after December, buying $45 bn a month in long term US treasuries. (Apparently the banks' balance sheets have not been fixed up yet, so the Fed must continue soaking up their bad paper.)

Using my lightning mathematics skills, I make that $85 billion a month of new money the Fed will create, or $1.02 Trillion in 2013.

FOMC also promised "more accommodation" (translation: "creating more money") and that it would keep the Fed Funds rate between zero and one-quarter percent till unemployment (now 7.5%) drops below 6-1/2%.

Now quick! Tell me what $1.02 trillion in new dollars will do to the value of already-existing dollars? There! I see that hand! Yes, it WILL lower the value of all those existing dollars. So all you trembling silver and gold investors who were fretting that the Fed might stop inflating, just rest easy. They just told you they will be inflating away all next year. I keep telling y'all, the Fed and Ben Bernanke are the best friends silver and gold have.

But maybe not stocks' best friends. Dow reached a high of 13,329 today, but finished the day nearer its 13,227 low. Dow gained 11.17 (0.08%) to close 13,259.61. S&P500 rode the same roller coaster, ending up only 2.79 (0.2%) at 1,430.63.

Technically, that performance can be explained another way. The Dow and the S&P500 both hit significant overhead resistance today, at 13,300 and 1,440. Both have reached that "pull the fuse or throw the dynamite" stage, and 'tain't clear to me which choice they'll make. Given the time of year I suspect both will rally further. Besides, both are above all their moving averages, so momentum is up. There's more: both have scratched out unbroken uptrends since mid-November. However, momentum indicators are warning that there's a limit to this rally -- not yet, but shortly.

Naturally the dollar fell like a mule had kicked it in the jaw. Dropped through support at 80 like a man walking into a manhole and lost 23.2 basis points (0.3%) to end at 79.821. Given the FOMC's announcement, I'm surprised it wasn't worse. Gives you an inkling how brain-scrubbed the public is.

What about the other two scrofulous, scabby, no-good, low-down trashy, sorry-as-gully-dirt fiat currencies? Makes little sense: euro rose 0.49%, yen fell 0.77%. At $1.3067 the euro bumped its head plumb against the overhead resistance. If it can break thru, it will sprint for $1.3400. Yen, on the other hand, lost a huge 0.77% to end at 120.26c/Y100. Gapped down again. Now I don't know, but if I were the Japanese Nice Government Men and I saw the dollar dropping and the Fed announcing plans to inflate like a puffer fish, I'd be selling yen and buying dollars to push down the rates. Especially if I ever wanted my economy to export to the US again.

US$1=Y83.15=E0.7653=0.029 667 oz Ag=0.000 583 oz Au.

Just to show you that no matter how healthy an animal or country is, the parasites are always ready to pounce, on 12 December 1791 the First Bank of the United States opened. It was part of the statist Alexander Hamilton's plan to create a central bank. Jefferson and Madison had beaten back the plan a year earlier, claiming the bank was unconstitutional and that it benefited merchants and investors at the people's expense. The bank lasted until its charter expired in 1811. The First Bank of the US was the SECOND attempt at foisting a central bank on the country, after the Bank of North America.

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

But y'all still have time to order At Home in Dogwood Mudhole for your gift list. There is time, that is, if you act promptly and go to www.dogwoodmudhole.com

Got a complaint from one reader yesterday. She said the book stuck to her hands. Every time she picked it up, she couldn't put it down. Worse yet, she said the folks in the lunch room were looking at her funny because she kept bursting out in fits of laughter.

Don't take my word for it, or hers, either. Go get yourself a copy of At Home in Dogwood Mudhole.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.

The silver and GOLD PRICE had a punk day. Silver forked over 35.9 cents to close at 3294.1c while gold gave back $4.80 to $1,708.20.

Here, too, markets are holding their breath waiting for tomorrow. After rising from last Thursday, the GOLD PRICE peaked yesterday at $1,716.74 and traded sideways today between $1,714.30 and $1,705.45. That $1,705 support is still gold's line in the sand. Cross that and drop a long ways. Up above the barrier is $1,725. Cross that and rise a long piece.

The SILVER PRICE low today at 3275c looks feisty, but it's still holding breath. Silver is caught in a range like gold: must hold 3250c, must better 3340c. Meanwhile we wait.

Don't misread all this. You are watching the tail-end of a silver and gold correction. Whether by month end or next month, both will come roaring up out of this hole, launching skyward like an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile out of a Nebraska silo. If you have none, you'd better be buying some. If you have some, you'd better be planning to buy more.

Nasty US dollar index today lost a weighty 26.1 basis points (0.34%) to end at 80.067, barely hanging on above the morale bruising 80 level. Scabby dollar has spent its fuel, but is hovering today, awaiting news from tomorrow's meeting of the FOMC (Fiends Opposed to Monetary Character). I've given up on trying to figure out how markets will react to anything the Fed or its cancerous committees do. Whatever they do, other than shut and bolt the doors and go out of business, will HURT the dollar long term.

Tomorrow's question hinges on whether the Fed will continue "Operation Twist" whereby the Fed obstructs, hamstrings, hampers, hinders, hobble, and handcuffs the real economy by suppressing long term interest rates AND continuing to misdirect capital away from truly profitable and useful undertakings. Let me predict that in some transmogrification or other, they will, because the only other answer -- stop digging the hole deeper -- will never occur to their control-starved brains and Size 1 consciences. (Sizes 1 through 18 consciences fit ringworm fungus, the larger single-celled animalcules, some bacteria, cockroaches, mealy bugs, most worms, planaria, tapeworms and other internal parasites, all the way up to earwigs, ticks, chiggers, leeches, and lamprey eels. Most mammalian consciences are Size 80 or larger.)

Only question left in what passes for my brain is whether the Dow will drop like a poleaxed steer from 13,300 or race on up to pull in as many poor victims as possible. I hope y'all tie yourselves to the mast and refuse to harken to the Sirens' song.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.